Berkeley Reporter

by Steed Dropout
May 18, 2012

BERKELEY: THE FEARED 86

It all started with the home fries.

I have been stalking Cafe Med’s home fries, which are more like mush than fries, and they often taste like a dirty wash cloth. Just the other day, Julia, a hard working, loyal veteran employee, who doubles as one of a rotating crew of cooks, was asked to refund a patron’s money over the home-fries.

“You’re right,” she told the customer, “the fries are crap.” She rarely talks like this.

What’s it to me? I want the Med to thrive forever, a monument to an old Berkeley, which is dying out.

I’ve noticed that a lot of customers barely touch their mushy “fries.” There’s no fry there.

For years, I’ve urged owner Craig Becker to investigate, but he does things his way — like McDonalds. If he were an accomplished chef, or knew something about cooking, or cafe management, he might do it his way. He needs all the advice he can get, lest his way become “no way.”

Last year Medfries were at least edible. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “86” »

by Steed Dropout
May 13, 2012

24-HOUR BERZERKELEY?

I arrived at the world-famous Cafe Mediterraneum on equally famous Telegraph Avenue before midnight for an event that could make Berzerkeley even more of a world-class berg — 24-hour attractions.

A videographer was there to record me, self-appointed greeter, kick off Berkeley’s first 24-hour business opening. As usual I was on assignment for the Berkeley Daily Planet, Berkeley’s link to back-in-the-day.

Our documentary soon devolved into an ersatz study of the “energy” drink Red Bull, which I had smuggled into the Med. The Med has an un-enforced no outside food/drink policy.

I hoped Red Bull would get me through the night, but was unfamiliar with its effects. After gulping two Red Bulls, I announced I was drunk on the non-alcoholic brew. Perhaps RB had interacted with the marijuana I had eaten.

12:01, and Med remains open all night, to test 24-hour permission. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley: A Red (Eye) Bullish After-Hours Cafe Med Blow-Out” »

by Steed Dropout
February 21, 2012

BERKELEY REPORTER: THE VOICE OF CHURNALISM

Let’s say that Manhattan is the Big Apple, and Berkeley just a bite.

And let’s further say that the New York Times speaks for New York, while we, here at Berkeley Reporter, and at the Berkeley Daily Planet speak for Berkeley.

This is as close as BR will ever get to the Times, where they still manage to do journalism, while we are busy practicing churnalism, or as the co-founder of the international Occupy movement has characterized us — “crap.”

If you think the news you read is manufactured (Chomsky), or even invented (Mencken), you’ve found a home at BR. We admit it.

Churning a story defined: it’s when you contribute to a story you are covering in a way that alters the story. The motive: to inflate the story. Bigger stories read better than honestly paltry tales.

My last Planet piece covered, the popular performance artist, Billy Palen, and his alter-ego, Reverend Billy, who was here from the Big Apple for a conference at the university. He’s so big he stayed at the Faculty Club.

Famous Cafe Mediterraneum, home to many demos. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Churning a Story, While Reporting the Little Apple” »

by Steed Dropout
February 11, 2012

BERKELEY POLICE RETURN TO SCENE OF MANY CRIMES

It was six o’clock, and Craig Becker, owner of the Caffe Mediterraneum, was leaving the store to pick-up supplies. Lost in his usual fog, he, nevertheless, did see Michael outside the cafe with his pants down.

Perhaps pants down in Deluth is a bigger deal (especially in the winter) than in Berkeley. But I had warned Becker to keep an eye out for Michael. Michael had been barred from the cafe numerous times.

After telling Michael, once more, he could not enter the cafe, Becker called Berkeley Police on his cell phone, and left. He forgot, as he often does, to warn his employees. Becker has a long list of forgottens.

Rat-trapped at Caffe Med, Friday, a mentally-ill man, with flare, is surrounded by police, who 'just want to help.' Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Whacked Again at Berkeley’s World Famous Cafe Med” »

by Steed Dropout
January 29, 2012

This is dedicated to Kim Nemirow, just another dedicated Berkeley activist, who was recently kicked off the Berkeley Homeless Commission, which was her spiritual home. Don’t quote me on this, but Kim’s own disability may have led to her ousting, a possible violation of the American With Disabilities Act.

Kim is still (four years service) a commissioner on Berkeley’s Mental Health Commission.

I won’t say Kim is stalking me, but I run into her all over town, where she hounds me to do a piece on “Mental Health in Berkeley.”

So here goes — Kim.

Dear reader, how is your Berkeley mental health? Let me poll you on this.

1) Do you go off on people?
2) Have you stalked anyone lately?
3) Talked on a nonexistent cell phone?
4) Subscribe to the intra-net. Don’t subscribe, but receive it anyway.
5) Sense strange smells. Worry that it is you?
6) Have a pile of documents proving that you are under investigation by multi-agencies?
7) Are you investigating the investigators?
8) Enjoying yourself too much? Too little?
9) Ever been called crazy? Do you agree? Disagree?

We won’t give the answers, because the questions answer themselves. One tip, though, on number 9. Any way you answer this, you’re crazy.

Such are the exigencies of mental health in Berzerkeley, known world-wide for its wacky ways.

Street People, Telegraph Avenue, all presumed mentally disabled. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Mental Health in Berkeley: Yours, Mine, and Theirs” »

by Steed Dropout
January 23, 2012

Adventure #1: Med Beauty Queen of the Month.

My publisher and I here at the Berkeley Reporter, an on-line rag (berkeleyreporter.com), were convened at our spacious offices, here at the famous Caffe Mediterraneum, on Telegraph Avenue, a hop-skip-and-a-jump from People’s Park. Whew!

We were reviewing shots I had just snapped of a young femme fatale, whose shots I had botched previously.

I had serendipitously stumbled onto the femme, who was on the mezzanine with a male friend, and requested to shoot her again — with a different camera. But that was after we did a little coffee house conversation, in which I offered to tell the duo the story of how I had to suck the president’s dick, before being initiated into my college fraternity.

Contestant #1, Nicole, at the Med, inspired Berkeley Reporter's beauty queen contest. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “The Adventures of Aged Men, and Other Tales From Berkeley’s Link With Its Freaky Past — the Whacky Caffe Mediterraneum” »

by Steed Dropout
January 20, 2012

Ray Gibson, a homeless man, who lives like a dumpster-diving king, dubbed by me in several stories as “the Mayor of Telegraph Avenue,” gave me the following “news story,” and I bought him a bagel.

Gibson: “I was approached by two Berkeley cops as I climbed the stairs to the old Wooly House [just off Telegraph]. They had no warrants, and questioned me aggressively about what I was doing there, and would not believe that I had permission — I’m managing the property for the owner.

The mayor at the Med. No photos, please. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Squatters Don’t Got Rights For Squat” »

by Steed Dropout
January 12, 2012

Running Wolf, organizer of a tree-sit on Cal Berkeley property, the longest urban tree-sit in North America (3 years), was chowing down on a burrito I bought him at the Med — out of guilt because I wouldn’t let him crash at my pad.

“Blood brother,” he scoffed, “and you won’t let me crash.” He was right, I’m a hypocrite, or worse.

I was pushing this blog site, and he was pushing resentment? Resentment is RW’s reason to live. He resents the U.S., which he says stole the country from his ancestors; he resents automobiles, and anyone who drives them, and he resents the University of California for destroying the flora of People’s Park.

Streets bother him, and from time to time he will rip asphalt from the street with a screwdriver, and burn a U.S. flag or two on Telegraph Ave., especially on the Fourth of July, when he went on a flag-burning frenzy.

I have written countless stories about him. We have considered becoming blood brothers, but suspect each other’s blood, and how blood-brother is that?

I sometimes refer to him as RW, because I see him as more of a mogul than a thoughtful radical. Thoughtless or not, he is good at what he does — shit-disturbing.

Up a tree with Running Wolf at Occupy Oakland. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Running Wolf, Hunter S. Thompson and Me” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 27, 2011

As I have tiresomely noted in my bio-tag following numerous people’s park articles in Berkeley Daily Planet, I have lived a half block from world-famous People’s Park for thirty-one years.

Here’s some of the people’s park articles.

I arrived, 1970, in Berkeley, one year after the bloody battle between hundreds of police and students and townies for what has now become sacred grounds in Berkeley — People’s Park. You could say, I was DOA (dead on arrival) because, even then, I was looking for escape.

Supposing myself under surveillance for my activities with the Hawaii Resistance, a late sixties Oahu-based anti-draft, anti-war movement, if not at risk from the U.S. Naval Reserve (inactive), which could have re-called me to duty, I wanted nothing to do with radical politics.

Gawkers and dreamers. Homeless man an on right schemed to claim bricks from felled Sequoia building, across street,but his plan was doomed from the start. The bricks are too polluted to claim. They are now part of a pile still - nearly a month since the big blaze - awaiting Berkeley officials' clearance for removal.
Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Berkeley’s People’s Park and Me — Who Else?” »

by Steed Dropout
Dec. 20, 2011

Who am I now?

A formerly homeless reporter in Berkeley, Ca, or a “self-important” nobody with problems?

Dr. Tim, a friend of ten years has ended our friendship, saying I’m self-important. He called to ask if I’d read some lit book. I replied with, a world-weary rasp, “I’m too busy to read.” I was writing my latest yarn.

“That’s because you’re too self-important.” He always screams into the phone, because a stroke 15 years ago left him severely disabled. After flaming me, he hung up.

I could here discourse on the importance of self importance, but anyone could make the case. In short, self-importance is a relationship with someone you love. Do you want friends with low self-importance?

Ford Mustang flips near Telegraph Avenue. Photo by Ted Friedman.

Continue reading “Blog Fog: Lost In a Blog” »